Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease in which the skin reproduces rapidly and causes red patchy skin
Psoriasis has raised some brows within cancer research and whether it can cause cancer or not. Although more research is need psoriasis is suspected in increasing the risk to developing cancer. But while looking for the connection to cancer, there are a number of cancers that are for sure not caused by psoriasis thankfully. The types of cancers that can be written off as risks are prostate, breast cancer, colon cancer, and leukemia.
Increased risk involves cancers like lymphoma, nonmelanoma skin cancer, and lung cancer. Increased risk does not reside in psoriasis in itself but more in the approaches taken to help get rid of it. UV therapy is used to help treat psoriasis sometimes and UV radiation is known to cause cancer, mainly skin cancer since UV rays beam down on us all day. In addition with drugs that affect the immune system making it weaker would also make our bodies defense too weak to catch cancer before it starts.
Psoriasis is not considered a cause of cancer all together but could be gateway for other ways for cancer to creep in. Blood and skin cancers are the dangers that could be linked with psoriasis. Sometimes the psoriasis will look like skin cancer or vice versa. Its important to distinguish the two, and to be safe here are symptoms that could help raise some red flags:
Psoriasis should show
- Cracked and/or dry skin, maybe bleeding
- Itching and/or burning skin, pain
- Thick fingernails
Skin cancer shows sign like
- Odd colors
- Crusty and scaly texture
- Rather than leaving it changes form or gets worse
- Brown, black, blue, yellow, white, or even black
- Firm texture
Although psoriasis does not cause cancer, the precautions used to treat it may increase the risk of developing cancers listed above. But it does play a role in the dangers.
Stress also plays a part in cancer risk, as well as it can worsen or even increase a risk to get psoriasis. Stress is known to cause inflammation, which is why it can cause headaches, drops in immune system strength and worse of all increased risk of cancer. Stress levels also make the effects of psoriasis better or worse.
Psoriasis cannot be cured, but it can be controlled and treated to reduce the severity. There are a number of people that have it leave and not return for a good number of years. They can be small, be in multiple places, or cover a huge part of the body. They can sometimes be mixed up with lupus so it is important to not get it mixed up with psoriasis or sometimes even ringworm because of the texture.
There are also environmental causes to make the flaring worse, and they can be things that affect the health of your mind and body. New therapies and medicines are coming to light as more research is being done on the cure for it, and they include non harmful things like using living cells to fight it. A lot of the current drugs are known to increase chances of cancer so more recent treatments are changing the risk.
